Abstinence
by Glinda
Summary: Finding Photographs and remembering who you are


He didn't know why he did it really. He'd never really been one for photographs. Never shared the obsession that so many other people he'd known did, for taking photographs at the slightest event. Documenting change so obsessively. He hadn't realised he'd been in that many himself till he'd found out about Clive and his 'research'. That worried him, that sort of thing was the very reason why he didn't do photographs. Nothing that would tie him to one time or place. Just a name, many different faces. 

A few of his companions had dragged him into photos and the pictures had gathered in a drawer in the library where he occasionally looked them out and smiled or frowned at the memories they brought up. He shouldn't have been remotely surprised that so soon after his regeneration the had brought Rose here. He found her sitting on the floor looking at them. Still unsure of himself, and her for that matter, he sat down beside her and watched her for a moment. She looked round at him and smiled slightly. She worried her lip for a moment as she deliberated over how to ask the question that was obviously on her mind.  
"You've been all these people?" He looked at the photos spread out around her. "Yes." He replied simply. "A couple more as well. Some of me knew more snap-happy people than others"  
She smiled at that. "What were"  
"They like? Different…but on some level the same. They're all me. Part of me. If I were human you might view them as potential me's. In different circumstances you would be a different person…I just get to try being them all. If that makes any sense"  
"Yeah. It kind of does…but at the same time doesn't at all. Ever worry that you'll look at them one day and see a you that you haven't been yet"  
"The old girl wouldn't let that happen but yes, that's why I hate photographs. I might see my own future…then I'd always be second guessing myself. Am I doing this because it's the right thing to do or because I think I've already done it. Paradoxes are horrible things"  
"You don't look at these very often do you"  
"No. I tend to stumble on them by accident just when I need to be reminded of something. I think it's her way of reminding me of things"  
She gently lifts a book up from where it's been hidden from view by her leg. It's an old leather-bound copy of 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea, autographed by Jules Verne. Marking the place in it is a very old photograph of him and Jules Verne. And a young girl of barely 12, with short dark hair and equally dark eyes, hugging the recently autographed book happily to her chest.He lifts the photograph gently from between the pages to cradle it inhis hand. Her pose is so prim and proper, yet her eyes are dancing with mischief.His voice sounds like it comes from someone else whenhe speaks. "Now that, Rose, is probably the oldest photograph you are ever likely to see. It's nearly 500 years old"  
"That's you isn't it. Who's the little girl"  
"Yes. That's me…towards the end of my first incarnation."He can barely speak. She looks so alive likehe could reach out and touch her. Andhe wants to.He wants to go and see her and pick her up and give her a hug, buthe can't. She's gone like all the rest of them.  
"Is she family?" Family? Oh yes she's family. More family than anyone else.He has to tell her. How canhe not?  
"She's my granddaughter."He can almost hear the blink of surprise at that one.  
"I didn't know you had…"  
He laughs bitterly. "I don't. I've never had children of my own. I've taken in many an orphan but that's as far as it goes. She just turned up in the TARDIS one day: key in hand. Looks up at me, grins like a small Cheshire cat, runs at me launches herself at my knees and calls me Grandfather. She was seven. There was a terrible fuss when I got home. Genetically we're family but she was at the completely wrong point in my timeline. They couldn't see when she was from, time was blurry there. These days I suppose she must have been sent back just before the Time War started that's why they couldn't see"  
"Is she…gone too…?"

"Yes, when the war started. Gallifrey called…and we answered. All of us. I could see it. In her eyes. She knew we were fighting a loosing battle but she still fought. She's fought Daleks for half her life, she died fighting them. Bizarrely I think she'd have liked that, to know she went down fighting them. 'Don't let them win', she said, 'whatever happens, whatever the cost, they mustn't win.' So brave. Braver than me. Brave like I never taught her to be"  
Her arms are round his shoulders now. Chin resting on one, looking at the photo. When she speaks she's addressing the photo though she's talking to him. "We didn't let them win, Susan. We beat them. They're gone forever. You didn't die in vain. None of you did"  
And for a moment, everything, all the pain, all the anger, all the sacrifice is almost, almost worth it. Little by little, moment by momenthe's learning to believe that: to let them go.


End file.
